Going The Virtuous Route
I'm hearing all this stuff and I can't help but be reminded of back when we DX users were chomping at the bit for Moto to give us FroYo. Yes, it was frustrating as hell, but we got through it. I feel that in this situation, the same will apply. We are going to wait a ridiculously long period of time past the date we were given, but we will eventually get it. It sucks, but that seems to be the modus operandi of our friends at Moto when situations like this arise.
I'm already frustrated because I waited too long and lost out on the coupon offer that others were able to avail of last week. (I couldn't do it at the time because the funds weren't available - so I left them in my shopping cart.) When I went to try and resume at my shopping cart, the $200 discount was gone and all that Moto E-Commerce can sing is that same old tired song about it isn't supposed to happen. In fact, they're denying that they honored any of those sales at all - I almost feel like I was baited and switched on. In any event, it looks like I'm going to continue my efforts and try to get it on a data-only plan with Verizon - provided I can still keep the same unlimited data plan that I have with my DX. I'm not about to spend $30/month for only 10GB. I can easily go through that in about 5 days.
As for the unlocking and rooting, I know that on this device, I will simply be patient and wait for the 4G radio to be added. Once all the hardware is in place, all bets are off. We are fortunate in that the XOOM was the base development device this time for Honeycomb - the only reason we get unlocked bootloader. I'm willing to wait because I know that in time, you wonderful people here at XDA will have all the bugs worked out and there will be at least 3-4 good ROMs out there for it by that time.
Yes, it will be agonizing to wait. But it will be worth it in the long run. Development with locked systems totally sucks - even though the folks here do their very best everyday to make it worth it for the rest of us. However, we are now entering development for a tablet - an awesome tablet in fact. We stand to be the recipients of some really quality programming here soon. It's an era that I'm proud to be at the ground floor of. Hell, I might even try to learn how to make ROMs for this one.
All in all, patience truly is a virtue and I'm going to try as hard as I can to be virtuous this time around. Please keep me in your prayers that I don't go completely nuts. Thanks family.